An Iowa State University psychology professor is praising the World Health Organization’s recent classification of video game addiction as a mental health disorder. Doug Gentile started studying video games, and their impact on players, in the late 1990s. Gentile admits he was initially skeptical of parents who claimed their children were “addicted” to video games. “The more I studied it, the more I realized I was wrong,” Gentile said. “In fact, there are some kids who take serious damage to their lives because of the way in which they are gaming.”

Research conducted by Gentile estimates just over 8-percent of youth gamers are addicted at a clinical level. According to Gentile, the World Health Organization’s action is a critical step toward getting gaming addicts the help they need. “Until it’s recognized as a real problem by the medical community, you can’t really get help – no one is treating it, insurance won’t pay for it,” Gentile said. “So, now that it’s being recognized as a bonafide problem, hopefully treatments will become more available and we can start studying what types of treatments are most effective.”

Video game addiction can have long-term, damaging consequences, according to Gentile. One research study he led involved some 3,000 kids – who’s gaming habits were monitored over a two-year period. “In fact, when kids became addicted to games, their depression increased, their anxiety increased, their social phobias increased, and their grades got worse,” Gentile said. “If they stopped being addicted over the years of this study, then we saw the opposite pattern – their depression lifted, their anxiety lifted, their social phobias lifted.”

(Radio Iowa)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — An Ankeny couple accused of physically abusing their adopted children have been given probation. The Des Moines Register reports that 56-year-old John Bell and 58-year-old Joyce Bell were sentenced Thursday to two years of probation. They’d both pleaded guilty in May to two counts of misdemeanor child endangerment. Prosecutors had lowered the charges from felony counts.
John Bell admitted to disciplining two of his children “in an inappropriate and harsh manner, both physically and verbally.” Joyce Bell admitted using harsh language and being “verbally aggressive” with two of the children. The couple had adopted nine disabled children from foster care.

Two men from South Carolina were arrested Thursday evening, in Creston. According to Creston Police,Jarrod Douglas Taylor, of West Columbia, SC, and Roger Ansel Harmon, of Gaston, SC, were arrested at the Creston Super 8 Hotel. Both were charged with Possession of Drug Paraphernalia, and released on promise to appear later, in court.

Fremont County Sheriff Kevin Aistrope reports, that at around 3-a.m. today (Friday), undercover deputies and the Fremont County K9 Unit arrested a woman from Elliot. 30-year old Shiann Ornelas allegedly made arrangements with an undercover deputy to perform sexual services in exchange for US currency. During the investigation deputies also recovered methamphetamine, marijuana, and drug paraphernalia.

Shiann Ornelas

Ornelas was charged with Prostitution and Possession of a controlled substance. She was transported to the Fremont County Law Enforcement center and held pending an appearance before a magistrate.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Des Moines has concluded that it was legal for Polk County to grant $844,000 to nine area Catholic schools. On Wednesday Bishop Richard Pates told The Des Moines Register there is “a legitimate question of legality” regarding publicly financed grants used to buy technology equipment for the nine Catholic schools and one Christian academy in 2012 and 2013.
Several Catholic school supporters had formed a new Iowa corporation called Education for the 21st Century to apply for and receive the county grants. The group is now defunct.

The diocese said Thursday that “providing this form of support that does not directly advance religion is entirely consistent with the law.” Iowa state officials have said they won’t challenge Polk County’s decision to provide the grants.

The Iowa Department of Transportation is asking for your help in determining which state rest areas along interstate highways are staying, and which ones will go away. D-O-T spokesperson Andrea Henry says this is the third phase of the review the rest area program.”What we have done is come up with a draft plan of what we recommend to do with the rest areas in the next 20 years. As part of that plan…we put that out for public comment and let people look through that and give their feedback,” Henry explains. The state has 38 full-service rest areas and 16 that are for parking only. She says they have looked at a variety of factors to see how the rest areas are being used. “Usage of the rest area — which includes how the normal everyday citizen is using that as well commercial drivers like truck drivers,” Henry says. “We’re looking at the ages of the facilities, we are looking at the services they provide, spacing between rest areas.”

Henry says they took all the information and came up with a plan. “We treated each one of the rest areas and then we ranked them to look at ones that we could potentially close and still be able to provide the same services or resting points for the traveling public, and made those recommendations for closures,” Henry says.

The best rated rest stops are in line for money to improve them. They include (in alphabetical order) :I-80 Adair eastbound and westbound; I-380 Cedar Rapids Northbound; I-80 Davenport Westbound; I-35 Dows northbound/southbound; I-35 Northwood northbound/southbound; I-80 Tiffin Eastbound; I-29 Pacific Junction Northbound. The lowest rated include: I-80 Davenport eastbound; I-680 Loveland eastbound and westbound in Pottawattamie County; I-29 Missouri Valley northbound; I-29 Onawa northbound and southbound; I-35 Osceola northbound and southbound; I-29 Sergeant Bluff northbound; I-35 Story City northbound.

Henry says they would like to shut down the lowest rated rest stops in the next 20 years to ensure they have run out their useful life. Henry says they want to make sure they are getting the most use out of the reststops because it takes a lot of money to run them. “They currently cost about three-point-seven million per year for operations. That’s just to keep them going,” she says, “and then of course we have the improvements that we program. In the current five-year program that includes seven point-five million over the next five years.”

Henry wants anyone who uses the reststops to look over the recommendations and give their opinion. “You can go to our website — which is Iowa-D-O-T-dot-gov-slash-rest-area-plan (iowadot.gov/restareaplan). And on that are all of the background materials as well as that draft implementation plan. There is also a nice video on there that helps explain the process and our approach to the rest area system,” Henry says.

Henry says they will be taking public comment through September of 2019. She says it stretches for more than one year to give time for a study of truck parking that’s underway to be completed. “And then after that we will take all of those comments into consideration and look at the draft plan and draft a final plan,” Henry says. The rest areas were first constructed along the interstates in the 1960’s. Federal officials originally recommended that there only be a 30 minute drive between a rest area or other available facility, and that was later changed to one hour. The availability of services along the interstates has changed as cities grew up around them and that has sometimes led to reststops that are no longer needed. The D-O-T closed two reststops on I-80 near Waukee after a survey in 2012 found they were not being heavily used.

(Radio Iowa)

Red Oak Police, Thursday, arrested 48-year old Shelby JoAnn Olivares. The Red Oak woman was taken into custody in the 500 block of E. Market Street on a charge of Public Intoxication. Olivares was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $300 cash bond. And, 19-year old Jacob Anthony Anderson, of Red Oak, was arrested Thursday afternoon for Possession of a Controlled Substance/1st offense. Anderson was booked into the Montgomery County Jail on a $1,000 bond.